SUMMARY: This Case Study will be fascinating to everyone involved in paid
search marketing. The folks at MyCorporation.com reveal the 5
lessons they learned (including how to cope with fraud and
trademark abuse) when they switched from buying banners to buying
search text ads.

Plus, you will also hear how they revamped their email newsletter.
Before it produced almost no direct sales. Now 1% of recipients
buy within 30 days.

The traditional late-summer sales slump due to vacations extended far beyond its regular Labor Day boundary last year due to the anniversary of Sept 11th.

Normally when everyone gets back to work first week in Sept., companies see a sudden upsurge in sales. This time the upsurge felt; muted. Sales the following week, when the anniversary fell, were definitely off. (In fact we predict this pattern may hold to a lesser extent in 2003 as well.)

After this business slow-down of more than a month, Phillip Akalp President of MyCorporation.com was definitely feeling the pinch.

"My co-founder said, 'Phil we need $150,000 more in 60 days or we're in trouble.'"

Akalp immediately reviewed his biggest monthly line item: marketing costs. An early proponent of placing banners for his site against relevant search engine results (see link below to our Dec 2000 Case Study on his tactics), his search banner marketing budget was $120,000-$150,000 a month.

The conundrum: If he cut the search marketing budget enough to save that much-needed cash, how would he be able to replace the sales expected from it?

CAMPAIGN

Akalp had been increasingly disappointed in banner results at search engines, so he was ready for a change anyway."We used to receive a 2-8% click rate depending on keyword, and all of the sudden it dropped to .5% or less for keyword-based ads."

He blames the search sites for this. Akalp thinks banners would still work if it were not for increased competition from other ad units on the page. "We used to own the 468x60 banner on AOL for our keywords. Then they added a 120x60, and a second one, then they added featured site links, then they added different featured site links. These guys oversaturated their results pages with competing links.

"MSN search used to have a wonderful click rate (it was something like 17%) but they started selling more and more listings above it, below it, incorporated Google or Overture listings, we were down to 2% clicks. It was no good for us paying on CPM."

He took a big risk and bailed on the relationships, cutting paid banners almost by 100%.

Instead he gave himself a budget that was just 10% of his former paid banner budget, and dedicated it to two tactics he hoped would bring the same amount of sales in despite marketing cuts.

-> Tactic #1: Testing PPC Text Ads on Search Engines

Akalp decided to test the one tactic every B2B marketer on this planet is trying right now: PPC (pay per click) text ads on search engines. He tested Google and Overture.

He also tested LookSmart's paid inclusion service at the same time (you pay per click for search engines to notice your site, but you are not guaranteed specific placement in results. For more info see link to our quick tutorial below).

Five keys were critical to his success:

a. Tracking conversion rates

Prior to investing in any paid ads, Akalp had an internal metrics system set up so he could track the click-to-buyer conversion rates by service and by keyword.

Also, although it is not possible to tell precisely what you paid for each individual click with Overture and Google, Akalp closely reviewed the general cost data they provided to make sure his costs were in line with expected conversions so he would not lose money.

b. Upgrading landing pages

Akalp already had pretty good landing pages (the web page clicks end up at) and had created specific pages for heavily used search terms so that visitors were presented with exactly what they were looking for.

Now he took the next step beyond watching conversion metrics, and hired a research company to run focus groups on the subject.

"We found reliability is very important, and the fact that we were going to be there for them after we incorporated them. So what we did was focus on reliability, 'We'll be there for you' on our landing pages," says Akalp.

He adds laughing, "Of course immediately after we did it, our competitors did too."

c. Testing copywriting changes on PPC ads

Akalp changed the copy on his PPC ads, "all the way to the point of changing the company name" every two-three weeks.

"Clicks come through very heavily at the beginning and quickly fade off. I don't know why exactly. After we change listings we start seeing increases again. Maybe people are getting sick of staring at the same old stuff. It's the old rule, change it after they've seen it three times."

d. Watching out for fraud

"At Overture we were paying $13 a click to get in one keyword. We were pumping in $1500-$2000 per day, and we were getting zero sales."

It did not make sense, so Akalp ran a detailed log analysis to trace the IP addresses clicks were coming from. "Overture has anti-fraud clicking technology, but I was getting all these clicks from China, Thailand and Italy. They started occurring daily at different times from the same IP addresses, it was pretty heavy."

First Akalp contacted Overture to try to get help. However, their suspected fraud procedures, which are understandably strict, were just too time and resource intensive for Akalp to handle with his current staff and systems. He cancelled the account completely.

"I tried maybe $15-17,000 with Overture, but when I realized we only had maybe $2000 in sales in total over a 10-day period, I stopped it."

e. Protect your trademark

Akalp was walking past one of his employee's desks one day when he happened to notice two things that stopped in his tracks.

His staffer was trying to get to MyCorporation.com's home page, but instead of typing the address in her browser, she typed it into the Google toolbar search box that is displayed immediately below it. "I realized that must be really increasing, people typing URLs into the Google toolbox instead of their address bar."

Which means many people who are trying to get directly to your site without searching, are being presented with search results instead.

Worse, Akalp noticed that paid ads for many of his competitors showed up in those search results, potentially diverting traffic that should have gone directly to his site. He immediately contacted Google and let them know that his URL was a registered trademark.

"They were so friendly. They removed all the competitor listings within 24 hours."

Akalp also contacted Overture about the same thing, and they too responded fairly quickly, removing competitors' ads within about a week.

-> Tactic #2: Testing Relationship Marketing

Like many marketers, Akalp had been so busy driving new business with advertising that he had neglected to spend much time on relationship marketing afterwards. In Sept 2002, he began three campaigns to rectify this:

a. Formal follow-up campaign to all new buyers

Akalp asked his call center to phone every single buyer just after the customer got their package in the postal mail. This was *not* a sales or marketing call. It was very clearly a service call.

"It might sound a little corny," he says, "but, a good service call after delivery is everything. We ask, 'Is everything ok? Did you understand what you received? Do you have all the materials you need?'"

All packages sent include a Roldex(tm) card with the service phone number and reps reference this when they call, "Keep us in your files, we're here for you anytime, just call us."

b. Revamping the email newsletter for added value

About 100,000 MyCorporation.com customers and prospects had signed up for the Company's email newsletter over the years, but Akalp did not see many sales results from it.

Last fall he looked over past issues trying to figure out how to improve them. The previous newsletters had followed classic email marketing rules, they were short, punchy and contained lots of links to various offers.

Akalp decided to test the opposite approach. Instead of quick and salesly, he made the newsletter longer and more valuable.

Each issue now features an in-depth article on a particular topic. There are links included, but they are related hotlinks so the reader can learn more about that topic. Akalp tries to make them as useful as possible. For example you would get "deep" links to the exact page you need on the IRS site's versus a general link to irs.gov.

Each issue also includes a poll asking readers what sorts of topics they would like advice on in future issues.

Akalp had been selling sponsorships to his newsletter in the past, but now he removed them. The only overt ad is section of the right vertical navigation bar that looks like a clip out coupon.

He also began posting the newsletters on the site. Instead of listing them merely by date, he listed each newsletter by the topic of the article it contained, which was much more valuable for visitors.

c. Deepening affiliate relations

MyCorporation.com also had an affiliate program since the days of yore, but it too had been on auto-pilot. Akalp decided to invest in hiring a business development staffer to focus on revving up affiliate revenues.

Along with approaching new potential affiliates, the staffer spent a great deal of time working one on one with current top affiliates. "One guy was so frustrating. He had this lame pink and green site. It was built in FrontPage and he didn't even know how to get hotlinks to work." Nevertheless, Akalp's staff went the extra mile, being persistently helpful with the affiliate.

RESULTS

"We cut our ad budget to $10,000 a month, and haveseen an increase in sales volume over that time that's shocking," says Akalp. "I was surprised when I saw the drastic increase."

The Company is back in solid financial health again. Akalp says his lesson learned was, "Don't be afraid of change when things are looking bad."

Results details:

- MyCorporation.com is continuing with Google AdWords, while watching costs and conversions closely, because it has been profitable so far.

The Company is also continuing its LookSmart relationship, although Akalp is slightly frustrated by the fact that by its very nature a paid inclusion service can not promise exact rankings or listings. He says, "It's worth spending the time to write your URLs titles and descriptions carefully so you'll rank well for your keywords."

- Akalp can not point to specific metrics for the follow-up phone campaign, but notes, "I can stick my thumb out in the wind and feel it's working. Now we notice the same customers putting in multiple orders. We asked them, 'Why are you forming two corporations?' They say, 'I'm doing this one for my friend.'"

- The average newsletter produces about 90 direct sales (almost a 1% response) when first sent, many from clicks on coupon. However, Akalp notes he continues to see sales in dribs and drabs months later from visitors surfing old issues on the site. It is worth posting them, and worth making sure all old promo links continue to work.

- Akalp was stunned by the response to his first reader poll in the newsletter. More than 3,500 recipients responded, a 3.5% response rate which is outstanding considering the age of the list and the fact that prior issues had been less "valuable.""I was shocked," he says.

- Approximately 2.6% of unique daily visitors sign up for the newsletter at the site. This includes buyers who click on the box to get the newsletter and non-buyers. It is worth noting the site does not have a pop-up to encourage sign-ups.

- The affiliate relations program is a solid success. Akalp's team have learned to judge affiliates by results, not by how great a site looks, that lame-looking pink and green site referenced above for example pulls in tens of thousands of sales every quarter.

Post a Comment

Note: Comments are lightly moderated. We post all comments without editing as
long as they (a) relate to the topic at hand, (b)
do not contain offensive content, and (c) are not overt sales
pitches for your company's own products/services.

The views and opinions expressed in the articles of this website are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily reflect in any way the views of MarketingSherpa, its affiliates, or its employees.